Blunt Threatens Confirmation Block

ST. LOUIS - Sen. Roy Blunt is threatening to block confirmation of the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator unless the federal government moves forward with a flood control project in southeast Missouri.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the Missouri Republican and his Democratic colleague, Claire McCaskill, want resolution of the long-delayed St. John's Bayou/New Madrid Floodway project. The project would build a quarter-mile levee and install infrastructure to protect farmland and small towns from the Mississippi River.

The project has been delayed for six years over environmental rules. Blunt accused the EPA of what he called "outrageous" efforts to stand in the way of the project.